


Arrow In Your Quiver

by FullElven



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, Spoilers, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27414970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullElven/pseuds/FullElven
Summary: Even the devout have doubts, and even the most carefully laid plans do not always pan out how you think they might. Nathanos lays dying in the Eastern Plaguelands at the Marris Stead...his own homefront...waiting for death to claim him a second time.
Relationships: Nathanos Blightcaller/Sylvanas Windrunner
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	Arrow In Your Quiver

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I drew a photo the other day that largely inspired this piece. I've had such anxiety and feels about the upcoming patch event and having to off Nathanos when I've grown to love him so much. ><
> 
> Accompanying art piece: https://www.deviantart.com/fullelven/art/Nathanos-859914633

Eternal autumn and golden leaves formed in the haze of his darkening vision as he lay on the hardened ground of the Marris Stead. While his body was in the Eastern Plaguelands, his heart lay in Quel’thalas, chasing blonde hair through magic-laden trees, her lilting laugher haunting and taunting on the breeze. No matter what he did, he could not keep up with her. One moment he would pick up her trail, the next he would find himself having to cut himself down from a trap, and the trail leading off in a completely opposite direction.

She was infuriating and ethereal…ephemeral and mercurial. Ranger General Sylvanas Windrunner was as beautiful as she was deadly, a poisonous asp cloaked in vanity and shamelessness. But what addicted Nathanos Marris to her was not any of that. When he thought about it, pretty as she was…she was kind of insufferable. But that was just the surface.

The only thing she loved more than herself was Quel’thalas, and to hear herself speak her deep pride in her Quel’dorei heritage, of her homeland, of House Windrunner and her sisters…that was to see her come truly _alive._ Her vibrant blue eyes would dance with joy, her smile spreading to reach them, as she spoke of its spiraling towers and glowing crystals…of the significance of the Sunwell.

Similarly, she came to life when she was training, and while she oversaw the Farstriders as a whole, there were fewer still that she took a special interest in. The training they received was relentless, advanced even to the most seasoned tracker, but they emerged elite shadows who could not be tracked nor lost by prey. They were also entirely female and Quel’dorei.

Nathanos was neither, and yet here he was, splashing his way across the river between the Blackened Woods and Eversong, feeling the sinking dread that the trail he was tracking had gone cold.

_“Nathanos…”_ Her voice floated to him upon the still air. _“…You’re not giving up are you?”_

His scruff-covered cheeks pinked with frustration— _frustration,_ _not attraction_—as he picked himself up off the bank and shook the water from his scraggly brown hair. “You can’t outrun me forever.” He said, teeth grit in frustration.

He continued, shivering, into the Burning Woods too stubborn to give up. The day stretched into afternoon, and afternoon well into night. He was tracking _something_ , but whether it was her or not, he could not be sure. For all he knew, she had him out here tracking Lynxclaw while she had already returned to the Enclave, laughing at his inability to keep up.

The temperature had dropped enough that his irritated huff sent a plume of vapor in the air, the chill making his cheeks permanently flushed against his sun-kissed skin. The sound of crickets chirping created a discordant symphony with the backdrop of screaming cicada in the trees. It was a mess of noise, interrupted by a shift of leaves, disturbed by lynx, spider, or gnoll…he was unsure. By the time he had made it back to the cobblestone road, he found himself at the foot of the Windrunner Estate and there leaning against a column.

“At last he arrives.” She spoke, her voice smooth like a song, the emphasis making him feel less like the hunter and more like the prey in this situation.

“And you doubted me,” he said, squaring his jaw and standing straighter. He was exhausted, starving, and cold, his boots still retaining some water from earlier, but he would be damned if he let her see a damned bit of that in him.

“Is that what you think, little human?” She asked, her blue eyes almost violet in the moonlight as she approached him. One step, another, she glided with the grace of a spectre, her piercing stare just as haunting. “That I…doubted you? That I…have time to play games with every trivial little being who dares glare my way?”

“I think you play a lot of games…with a lot of people, Ranger-General. Me included.” He said steadily around the lump in his throat.

She reached out, gripping his chin tight, the bite of armored claws piercing some through his thick wirey beard. Her face was inches from his, enough that when breath plumed, he was unsure it was his or if they had just shared breath. The air felt thick, tense, full of energy. Blood pulsed in his ears loud enough to drown out the life around him, and for the moment…only _she_ existed.

After a long moment of feeling as if his entire soul was being probed by the Quel’dorei, the very corners of her lips twitched a moment before the stoic façade was traded for that damned mocking laugh of hers. “I’ll see you tomorrow, _Marris._ Safe journeys.”

He just stood there dumbfounded, watching as she headed off into the night. “Safe journeys…Ranger-General.”

~*~

In the present, Nathanos coughed wetly, pain erupting from the arrows still pierced through him. His vision faded black, that exchange playing over in his mind, morphing and slowing til they were outside the Windrunner Estate once more, rage pumping through him as he saw the mark Saurfang had left on his Queen. Over the year, Nathanos had watched the parts of Sylvanas that he once remembered were fiercely proud in who she was—once Quel’dorei…then later Forsaken—become boiled and raw. Pride was stripped and, in its place, came an almost desperate, panicked reflex reaction to things she found frivolous.

Where she once had prided herself in her family, her sisters, she now resented and felt betrayed by Forsaken who would seek their families over her. Where once she had stood a shining beacon of Hope for Quel’thelas…she now sought to snuff it out wherever its ember flickered. There was not _life_ in her anymore.

No, it was more accurate to say that in her pursuit of a life free from shackles of undeath and order…she had forgotten how to _live._ She had over and over traded one pursuit for freedom for another, and in it sacrificed family real and found…given up hope of any kind for the comfort of carefully laid plans and contingencies.

His eyes fell to the burning red of the scar at her eye and idly wondered if this was it…this was her breaking. His face must have betrayed his worry, for fury took over her features and she gripped his chin. A sense of déjà vu would have flooded his senses if not for the anger she so freely showed him. Her white blonde hair seemed to float, reminiscent of her banshee traits and he felt his dead blood run cold. “Is that _pity_ I see in your eyes, _Champion_?”

He grit his teeth hard enough he felt his jaw pop. “After all these years, you think _pity_ is a word I would put anywhere near you?” He spat. “I have felt a great many things for you since we met, my Queen, but pity? Nay, that is a thing for sick children and ailing seniors. I have watched you fight for Quel’thalas, for the Forsaken, for all of us. I have been here, at your side, while you fell every foe who dared cross you. I could never pity you.”

She sneered, seeing something within him, and pushing him away. “Not you too.” She said coldly.

He canted his head a moment, confused, before it hit him. “What? Hope?” Her head snapped back into his direction with enough force to make him consciously decide to not flinch. “Hope is for things that have chance of failing. My Queen, I have _faith_. You are not improbable, you are i _nevitable. Ineffable._ You are the thread that sews our fates, the key to unlock our destinies. You have not nor never will be some maiden to be rescued, you have always been the savior of your own tale. I am but a player in your story, in awe and honored to serve as your Champion, your Chosen. I am but an arrow in your quiver, but I shall always fly true.”

Nathanos was not used to the expression she wore then. Their relationship had always been one of competition, of challenging. From Ranger and his General to Champion and his Queen. She oft always regarded him as a tool, a soldier, but she had made it clear when she put him in this body that he was not expendable. While in his heart, he had idly wanted it to be that she would miss him, but he knew it was an act not unlike reforging an old sword. His mind still had use, it just had need of the body to keep him.

However, this was the first time he ever felt unsure where he stood with her. He yearned for her to…do _anything_. Caress his face, hit him, scream…the uncertainty was almost unbearable. When she suddenly brought her hand up, he steeled himself for a slap, but her touch was soft, brushing his cheek. Before he could stop himself, his red eyes fell half closed as he leaned into it. He felt starved, and her palms could feed his hungry soul. He knew what their next plans lead, what would need done should he fail her…

_If not now…then when?_

Closing his eyes away fully, he turned his head just enough to lay a kiss against her weathered leather glove. It came of complete surprise when her fingers slipped from his cheek to his chin, lifting it slightly to press her lips lightly against his. If his heart could beat, he was sure it would pulse out of his chest as he brought his hands up to frame her face as he returned that kiss.

“I hope I do not come to regret this. “ She whispered against his lips, parting from him.

“As do I, Dark Lady. But when the time comes, there can be no hesitation.” He said, his own voice gentle. The sound of hoof beats approached from a distance. _Great. Company._

“There won’t be.” She assured him, returning to her usual façade. “Safe journey, Nathanos.”

His heart swam at her words. “Safe journey, _my love_.”

~*~

It was those moments that Nathanos gripped tightly in his fist as he choked on the thick, dark blood that clogged his throat. Though his eyes were open, blankly staring toward the heavens, he could no longer see it. His consciousness floated in and out of its own will as every moment here and there he was jarred back with the unconscious need to fight death. Feeling the cool, unforgiving fingers wrap around him, tearing him toward the other side felt _wrong_. As wrong as it had felt when his Dark Lady had sent him back to the Stead to wait for her.

_“I am waiting…”_ He thought, though a pang of worry came to him. What if she didn’t find him in time? What if Tyrande and the adventurers returned to burn him to cinders? _“No…she will be here…I just…have to give in. This is all in the plan. Trust in Her as you have always.”_

Pain was replaced with a permeating cold and an impossible heaviness that weighed on him like a blanket. The crimson light flickered in his eyes and began to dull, but ever still, he kept her in his mind. Everything was for _her_. “I followed you without thought…without hesitation…with everything I am. Was it enough? Was _I_ enough? Whatever hell takes me…may I be one less weight in your quiver…my Queen…my _love_.”

~fin~


End file.
